Review #34: Gremlins (1984)

Cast/Notable Credits:
Steven Spielberg (Exec. Producer): Many, many films

Joe Dante (Director): Piranha (1978), The Howling, Twilight Zone the Movie (1983), Gremlins 2 (1990), Explorers (1985), Innerspace (1987), Small Soldiers (1998), Masters of Horror T.V. series

Chris Columbus (Writer): Directed: Adventures in Babysitting (1987), Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), Home Alone 1 (1990) & 2 (1992), Harry Potter 1 (2001) & 2 (2002), Rent (2005)

Zack Galligan (Billy): Gremlins 2, Waxwork 1 & Waxwork 2

Phoebe Cates (Kate): Gremlins 2, Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), Private School (1983), Drop Dead Fred (1991)

Howie Mendel (voice of Gizmo): Deal or No Deal T.V. show

Frank Welker (voice of Stripe): T.V. Cartoon voices (Megatron – Transformers, & Misc. G.I. Joe voices)

Judge Reinhold (Gerald): Beverly Hills Cop 1 (1984), 2 (1987) & 3 (1994), Ruthless People (1986), Vice Versa (1988), Fast Times at Ridgemont High, The Santa Claus 1 (1994), 2 (2002), & 3 (2006)

Corey Feldman (Pete): Goonies (1985), Stand By Me (1986), Lost Boys (1987), Tales from the Crypt: Bordello of Blood (1996), Friday the 13th Part 4, Friday the 13th Part 5

Dick Miller (Murray): Corvette Summer (78’), Piranha, The Howling, V: the Final Battle (84’), Terminator (84’), Explorers, Chopping Mall (86’), Amazing Stories (86’), Innerspace, Gremlins 2, Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight (95’), Small Soldiers

Arnie Moore (Alex): Friday the 13th Part 4

Polly Holliday (Mrs. Deagle): Alice T.V. show, Mrs. Doubtfire

Don Steele (Rockin’ Ricky Rialto): KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park (1978)

Trailer:


Remember those furry little cute white and brown mogwai? Way before the “Furbie”, there was the mogwai. Oh yeah…there were three important rules to the mogwai:

1. Keep them away from light, especially sun light, it can kill them


2. Never get them wet


3. And most important of all, never ever feed them after midnight

But where did the mogwai come from?Gremlins.Best Christmas Horror Movie ever! I mean EVER! I know Steven Spielberg says that Gremlins is not a horror movie…but BULL SH*T! It is. It will be. And it always has been. If his name weren’t attached to the movie, it would have been rated “R”, not “PG-13”.

Anyway, one of my good friends, The Shark (famed inventor of the Shark Factor) and I decided to do a duel review of the film. The Shark isn’t a big fan of horror movies, but doesn’t cry in agony as Bookie does when subjected to them. Under his own free will, he went along with Bookie and I to see Jason X and Freddy vs. Jason on opening night at the movie theatre.

If there is a genre of horror movies he digs, then it has to be Zombie films. The Shark decided to do his review in a “diary form” of the movie, along with film times included as markers. Click Below for his review. Mine follows (a little bit longer review than normal). I can't be too harsh reviewing this movie because it's one of my childhood favorites.

The Shark's Review

In case you’ve been underneath a rock for the past twenty-some-odd years and don’t know what this movie is about, I give you a quick run down.

A failing inventor (Randall Peltzer) shopping in China Town is looking for a Christmas present for his son, Billy. An old Chinese man (BHA!) runs a flea market/junk shop located in a basement of a building. The old fart’s grandson lures Randall down into the shop in hopes of a sale.

While shopping Randall, comes across a mysterious creature (mogwai) singing and humming inside the shop and attempts to purchase the mogwai. The old fart refuses to sell the mogwai to Randall even at a steep price. The grandson secretly sells the mogwai to Randall outside of the shop for $200. The grandson tells Randal 3 important rules for maintaining a mogwai, yet he never asks the consequences of the rules.

Mr. Peltzer returns home to his family in the lovely little town of Kingston Falls and gives Billy the mogwai as a present. They call the mogwai Gizmo. A short while later, Billy is showing Gizmo off to his friend, Pete (Corey Feldman), and Pete accidentally spills a glass of water onto Gizmo. Gizmo curls up in pain and five little white furry balls pop out of Gizmo’s fur and BOOM! Five more mogwai appear. RULE # 2 is violated!

These five are not as quiet and gentle as Gizmo, and their leader appears with a white stripe of fur on his head (Stripe). The Mogwai-5 start to wreck havoc and torment Gizmo and the family’s dog. Billy takes one of them to his high school science teacher and demonstrates what happens to a mogwai when you get it wet...you know if I had some creature that no one's ever heard or seen before and multiplies when wet, I take it to my high school science teacher. He hated me. I could envision him when I brought the thing to him...

MR. W: That's nice Tom (sigh), but can you put that thing away. I'm not in the mood for any more of your jokes.

Me: It's not a joke! I'm telling the truth!

MR.W (speaking to himself): Just like when you said, "I didn't put that note 'Kick Me!' on your back." Why do I always get him in my class? This is two years in a row now! What did I do wrong God? What did I do wrong? Why can't the other science teachers get him?

Me: Come on Mr. W., it multiples when wet! See. (pour water on to the mogwai and watch it multiply)

MR.W (speaking to himself): Oh great, now he's creating a mess. It's popping out little cotton balls all over the place. Be calm. He's making a mess. Be calm. Just remember...only four more years until retirement, only four more years until retirement.

Me: See! (pour more water on it...so it could multiply more)

Back to the plot...the teacher keeps that one for examination. Later on that night the Mogwai-5 chew on Billy’s alarm clock’s cord, stopping the time on the face of the clock at 11:35. They trick Billy into feeding them food. Meanwhile at the school science lab, the guinea pig mogwai swipes the science teacher’s sandwich when he leaves at 2:30 am.

RULE #3 is violated! And by the way, what midnight do we go by? Greenwich, England midnight or Pacific Time Zone midnight? I don’t know do you? Let’s say Mountain Time Zone midnight (M.S.T.), just because no one else cares about that time zone or region of the U.S.

When everyone wakes up the next morning, the Mogwai-5 are cocooned in green slimy eggs. My first thought (if I’m Billy)…Oh sh*t, I f*cked up. I might need to kill something before these things hatch...but I’m not Billy. Instead, let’s tell mom and hope she knows what to do and then take off to do my normal day activities, leaving mom home alone with these mysterious eggs.

Later on that afternoon the eggs hatch, and those cute little Mogwai-5 turn into a vicious, killing, little green Furbies (Gremlins). The Gremlin at the school is hatched right as school ends for the day. The Gremlin kills the “token” science teacher by biting his hand and stabbing him in the butt with a syringe right before Billy arrives to save the day.

It’s weird how at the end of the school day everyone disappears from school. When Billy arrives, he just walks into a vacant school before stumbling on the dead science teacher. I know at my school there were still kids hanging around whether they were waiting for mommy to pick them up or in detention or using the library (NERDS!) or all the jocks and cheerleaders hanging out before practice.

Back to the story…Billy discovers what happens when they hatch out of the egg and flees home to save mom. Meanwhile, mom discovers the hard way, as the Mogwai-four hatch, torment Gizmo and throw him down the laundry chute and head for the kitchen.

At this point if you have realized that Gremlins like food, then you’re a moron. Yum, yum! Mom slaughters a few Gremlins in the kitchen using common household appliances. Billy arrives home just in time to see mom battling one of the Gremlins hidden in the Christmas tree and then Billy chops off his head with a sword sending the skull into the family’s fireplace. This is good sh*t!

Spike, the survivor of the Mogwai-5, breaks a window and flees out into the snowy night. Billy drops off mom at the neighbor’s house, returns and finds Gizmo trapped in the laundry chute, and then follows Spike’s footprints in the snow.

This is where I pause the movie and debate with The Shark about how water is snow in one of it’s three states of matter (solid, liquid, gas), so wouldn’t Spike be multiplying as he’s traveling through the snow. Oh well, we’ll chalk it up as a plot hole.

Billy the Tracker, tracks Spike down to the local Y.M.C.A. of Kingston Falls. Spike breaks in to the Y.M.C.A. and jumps into the swimming pool creating a spectacular visual effects scene of red, green, yellow smoke and a bubbling swimming pool. Billy sees this and freaks out and bails like a mother fucker to the local police station. Hundreds of Gremlins are created and cause trouble on the little town of Kingston Falls.

Billy rescues his girlfriend, Kate (Phoebe Cates) who is trapped working in a bar catering to a bunch of Gremlins, pouring them beer and feeding them. Back to our discussion of water and multiplying…does beer not have water in it as a key ingredient?

Billy saves the girl as they shack up to lay low in their work place, the local bank as the Gremlins cause problems in the streets of the town. Kate explains to Billy why she hates Christmas (see Shark’s review), as hours go by.

After a while, the streets are silent and vacant, so Billy and Kate and Gizmo venture out to find out what happened to the Gremlins. They discover the Gremlins in the movie theatre watching Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs, singing “I Ho! I Ho! Off to work we go!” Billy and Kate sneak into the movie theatre and turn on the gas and blew up the theatre killing the Gremlins.

Movie over…or is it? As Billy and Kate sighs relief, they discover Spike in the window of the local Montgomery Ward store eating candy. Yum, yum! Spike bolts into the store as Billy, Kate and Gizmo follow Spike into the department store. Billy gets his ass kicked by Spike inside the store as Kate bumbles around trying to turn on the department store lights. And Gizmo drives around the store in a toy Barbie Summer Corvette.

I asked the Shark, how does the car drive? Plot hole. Kate accidentally turns on the store’s display water fountain and right as Spike jumps into the water to multiply, Gizmo drives the car up a shovel ramp, sending him flying into the air taking him over to the store window blinds. Gizmo pulls down the blinds, letting in the morning sun rays, shining down onto Spike, melting him to a pulp of green goo.

Rule #1 violated! Gizmo saves the day! Old-fart Chinese dude shows up that morning and he puts in his “two cents worth of logic” to the family about responsibility of owning a mogwai and then takes Gizmo away.

Villain:

Cute little Mogwai + food after midnight (M.S.T) = green, slimy, killing, mischievous little men (Gremlins). Perfect score!

Cast:

Outside of Billy being a wussy and a little weird, I liked the cast. There could have been more hot chicks, but oh well, it’s a kids movie. Corey Feldman continues his great horror movie roles with this one.

SFX/Gore:

Only two dead bodies on the screen, go figure one of them was a black guy. Special effects were cheesy in a good way. For being early 80’s, they were pretty damn good. It was over the top slimy, and gooey stuff for the “Gremlin” look. Special effects bonus for every failed invention by Randall Peltzer:

The Bathroom Buddy: 1 pt.

The Peltzer Egg Cracker: 1 pt

The Peltzer Orange Peeler: 1 pt

The Peltzer Coffee Maker: 1 pt

The Peltzer Cordless Phone: 1 pt (he was on to something!)

The Peltzer Automatic Hammer: 1 pt

The Peltzer Multi-Fly Swatter: 1 pt

The Smokeless Ash Tray: 1 pt

TNA:

The movie should have had something more here. We get one hot chick (Shark Factor) in Phoebe Cates (pictured right…remember that scene in Fast Times of Ridgemont High as she climbs out of the swimming pool and…hmmmm). The only pair of tits we see are Billy’s as he changes his shirt in front of the way younger Pete.

What’s up with that? A nineteen-twenty something hanging around with a nine year old boy. I don’t know, something fishy going on there. Especially since he always invites him up to his room in the attic to show him "something".

Story:

Outside of the film being unrealistic the story is sound. They tricked us early on with all the cutesy stuff and then BOOM! Angry little green men killing people and causing havoc in a small town.

T.Gun's Take:

Gremlins was one of my favorite childhood movies of all time. I remember seeing this movie in the theater over and over. This movie represents the 1980’s and my childhood in many ways. They had a mini Donkey Kong video game, showed the old Star Wars arcade game, plush E.T. dolls, perms, cable T.V. line, VW Bug, clip on ties, gimmick inventions, old school video projectors for science films, boom boxes, etc.

Misc Movie Trivia:
-Film opened on June 8, 1984 and made $153 million at the Box Office ($12.5 million opening weekend)
-Gremlins was Warner Bros Pictures response to other studio's summer hit movies. Here's what also came out that summer:

Ghostbusters (Columbia Pictures) & Indiana Jones: Temple of Doom (Paramont)

Ghostbusters: released on same day and made $238.6 million at the Box Office ($13.6 million opening weekend)

Indy 2: released on May 28, 1984 and made $175 million at the Box Office ($33.9 million opening weekend)

- Downtown streets filmed on the same set as Back to the Future downtown streets
- Movie Titles on the theatre's marquee at beginning: "A Boy's Life" & "Watch the Skies", they were working film titles for Spielberg's E.T. & Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind
Indy 2 & Gremlins considered first film's with the "new" PG-13 rating.